Completed projects

In co-operation with commercial systems providers, E-ARK will create and pilot a pan-European methodology for electronic document archiving, synthesising existing national and international best practices, which will keep records and databases authentic and usable over time.

The methodology will be implemented in an open pilot in various national contexts, using existing, near-to-market tools, and services developed by the partners. This will allow memory institutions and their clients (public- and private-sector) to assess, in an operational context, the suitability of those state-of-the-art technologies.

Our objective is to provide a single, scalable, robust approach capable of meeting the needs of diverse organisations, public and private, large and small, and able to support complex data types. E-ARK will demonstrate the potential benefits for public administrations, public agencies, public services, citizens and business by providing simple, efficient access to the workflows for the three main activities of an archive - acquiring, preserving and enabling re-use of information.

SPRUCE (Sustainable PReservation Using Community Engagement) was a collaborative project funded by Jisc and led by the University of Leeds. It offered a series of 'Mash-up' events throughout 2012 and 2013 to put developers and collection owners in touch with each other. DPC supported elements of community engagement in digital preservation and in particular was charged with working up elements of a business case for preservation. Visit the SPRUCE website for more information.

Project highlights:

Digital Preservation Requirements and Solutions: A living archive of digital preservation practice that captures the preservation challenges faced by over a 100 practitioners from Libraries, Archives, Museums, Galleries and other organisations.

COPTR: A registry of digital preservation tools to help practitioners find the software tools they need to solve particular challenges.

PARSE.Insight was a two-year project co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme. It was concerned with the preservation of digital information in science, from primary data through analysis to the final publications resulting from the research. The problem is how to safeguard this valuable digital material over time, to ensure that it is accessible, usable and understandable in future. The rapid pace of change in information technology threatens media, file formats and software with obsolescence, and changing concepts and terminology also mean that, even if data can be read, it might not be correctly interpreted by future generations.Many initiatives are already under way in this area, and the aim of the PARSE.Insight project is to develop a roadmap and recommendations for developing the e-infrastructure in order to maintain the long-term accessibility and usability of scientific digital information in Europe. The project conducted a number of surveys and in-depth case studies of different scientific disciplines and stakeholders and based its results on these findings, as well as knowledge of ongoing developments.PARSE.Insight is closely linked to the Alliance for Permanent Access to the Records of Science. The output from this project is taken forward in the APARSEN Network of Excellence. Results are also delivered to the European Commission to support them in defining a strategy for developing a sustainable research infrastructure.

The Review Board for the ITT 'Mind the Gap' - follow up study reviewed responses to the ITT in mid-June. Whilst the Review Board found much to commend in the proposals it was decided not to award a contract at this time. The brief will be re-scoped to focus on actions for which the DPC or its members can take responsibility for and it will have a strong practical and achievable focus.

The 'Mind the Gap' report was published with 21 recommendations aimed at a range of stakeholders. To gauge which of these are the most important to the DPC community, members were asked to participate in a survey to consider the final 'Mind the Gap' recommendations. They voted on which recommendations would impact on their work and deliver the greatest benefit to the digital preservation community if achieved successfully.

A UK Needs Assessment was identified as a key priority in the DPC Business Plan for 2003-2006 in order to identify the volume and level of risk and assigning priorities for action. The first stage of this exercise was a DPC Members survey. This was carried out between August 2003 and March 2004, with a Workshop in November 2003 to discuss preliminary results and determine further action required. The survey form used is available below and the final report of the DPC Members survey and annexes, by Duncan Simpson, who was commissioned to undertake the survey on behalf of the DPC are also available. The report of the Workshop is also available below, and this Powerpoint slide presented by Duncan Simpson at the Workshop, indicates the proposed timeframe for the UK Needs Assessment, assuming funding for key initiatives.

Other deliverables from the survey are the map of DPC members, which provides details of each DPC member and their interest in digital preservation and (where appropriate) what material they have undertaken responsibility for. The table of DPC Member projects was also derived from the survey, and will be periodically updated. A related follow up task was Scenarios of Risks of Data Loss, real-life examples where data was either lost or at risk, provided by some DPC members and collated by Duncan Simpson. This is available below.

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